Someone tell me, am I missing something? Is there a big sign outside of my grocery store that says, "Freaks Meet Here!" Or maybe it's something more discreet like an unspoken meeting ground. Either way, there sure are a lot of nuts at the grocery store that I go to.

I first noticed this strange occurence when my wife was pregnant and I was on one of my late night trips to pick up some Ben and Jerry's, friend to the pothead and the pregnant. I was waiting in line to check out and the cashier turned to the woman in front of me who was getting ready to pay and said, "I'm hungry and I work in a grocery store. Is that an oxymoron?"

Silence filled the store, except for the incessant BEEP BEEP BEEP of someone's groceries being tallied. I don't really know how long the silence persisted, maybe an hour, time was really screwed up for a little while. Then, almost as if we had a psychic link, the woman and I both turned, drop jawed, to the checker and said, "NO."

He looked like his feelings had been really hurt. I think I may have even seen a tear come to his eyes. He was quiet for a little while as he finished bagging the woman's groceries then he said with renewed ferver (fever?), "So, what would you call it?"

The woman looked as though she had had enough with him. She didn't even answer. Finally I said, "It's irony."

He gave a very quiet, "oh."

So several months later I was at the store again looking for who knows what and I met freak number two. I was wearing a shirt for the band Hed (Pe). As I reached for some allergy medicine I hear, "What does your shirt say?"

I looked up and saw a girl with headphones on and a Beatles shirt, "It says Hed (Pe)."

She got a confused look and said, "I don't get it."

I replied , "It's a band", and started walking away.

She smiled and said, "Oh, I'm surprised that I didn't know that, I'm really into music, see?" She then pointed at her shirt.

I told her that was nice and continued to walk away and then heard, "Yeah, I got this at Albertson's."

I really wanted this conversation to end, "That's great."

"Guess how much this cost."

I said, "Gee, I don't know."

"It was $10, pretty cool huh? It would have cost $20 at a music store."

Finally I got out of earshot of her and I figured that the conversation was over and I ran. When I got into line, the girl that came up behind plopped down an onion and a pack of gum. The only thing that I could figure was that she was planning on eating the whole onion and then chewing the pack of gum to get rid of her bad breath.

The last thing that I'll say about the weirdness of grocery stores is about when I used to work in them. For a little while I was a bag boy and later on I was a night stocker (stalker, stocker...what's the difference?). While working as a bag boy I had a couple of customers come through that were just buying two cases of beer. These women also looked like pure white trash. I asked them if they needed help out to their car, figuring that they would say no, but in a drunken slur they told me that would be great. So I took the beer out to their car and they gave me a $10 tip and told me to go get a haircut. Best tip I have ever made.